Take part in the Boycott Workfare week of action! 4-12 October 2014

Forcing people to work for free through the threat of removing people’s benefits (sanctions) is unfair, unjust and wrong. In the week of action, tell the companies and charities who are profiting from this exploitative regime what you think of their involvement! Email, Tweet, use Facebook, phone them, protest, organise a flashmob: for a week of piling the pressure on workfare exploiters.

Resistance is paying off: the launch of the CWP scheme was massively delayed. Instead of using ‘big name’ national charities, the DWP has had to resort to small local charities and businesses to provide these Workfare placements. So local actions are all the more important! See Boycott Workfare’s list of Workfare users to find one near you.

All this means it is getting harder and harder for the government to find new employers willing to risk taking on Workfare placements. In fact the government is desperately doing all it can to avoid revealing the organisations using Workfare out of fear the schemes will collapse!

Workfare undermines real paid jobs and wages; results in sanctions for thousands; does nothing to improve the chances of finding a job; and exploits those forced to take up these placements. Our actions can stop companies, charities and councils from exploiting this forced unpaid work. Wherever you are, however you can contribute, take action on 4-12 October.

Whatever you’re planning – let us know and we’ll help spread the word!

If DWP sends someone to work at a pound store/whatever, they are now working, an employee of the store and should receive the minimum wage and whatever other entitlements an employee has, paid for by the employer. It is not the job of govt to provide free workers for businesses at taxpayers expense.

Yes, the attitude of the Rich elite must change, you’re right there. Feckless wankers like the workshy Horward Shiplee tossing it off on 200K p/a. IDS a natural born liar with a fabricated CV. Emma Harrison blagging Millions ££s of taxpayers’ money for doing zilch. These are the real “scroungers”. total fucking scum. Whilst hard-seeking jobless Workers like me are demonized, persecuted and harassed just for claiming what I am Rightfully entitled to and which is already mine to begin with. As for Education, I have Academic qualifications (7 O-Levels, 2 Diplomas, and a Hons. Degree) yet have been forced time and time again to complete a Basic Skills Test, at public expense, why?

Right! The problem isn’t the work shy, it is the shortage of jobs paying a living wage and the blame for that is totally on the govt. We’ve seen they have no problem pushing tough legislation through speedily when they want to ( bedroom tax). Their duty is to all the people in this country not just the monied elite. If everybody in the country is supposed to work and not be dependent on benefits – fine . Where are the jobs?They increased the population but didn’t increase jobs. They did nothing about off-shoring. They allowed the trans-national firms to avoid taxes, that money stashed overseas not circulating in our economy. When a migrant works instead of a Briton more money is draining overseas out of the economy. They allowed EU red tape to scupper local small firms and added to it with all their silly legislation which isn’t economic for small businesses. They removed control on rents so that HB rocketed. The govt never stops banging the drum about the unemployed and the welfare bill, but they are the ones responsible for the loss of jobs and jobs that pay so low they have to be propped up with welfare, and high rents also. They racked up University fees so high that young people who can’t find work can’t afford education to get work. They govt is to blame. They are responsible. But they choose to do nothing about it and scapegoat the unemployed, the ill the elderly the young and the poor. They are incompetent and should be sacked and replaced with people able and willing to govern the country for the benefit of everyone or con artists and crooks who should be in jail.

LP,
And to add insult to injury with these tests, they insist on calling you “learners”, as patronising and infantilising a term as you could wish not to have slung in your direction. The blanket assumption is that, if you’re unemployed, it must be cos there’s something wrong with you and/or your education – another diversionary tactic attempting to stop people from recognising the real culprits for the lack of decent jobs.

Able, n willing u grade 1A a…….! I’m a working lone mother so presumably even you’d agree I have work ethics. But I’m 100% anti workfare and 100% in support of the sick n unemployed if they refuse it. If I was signing on n they made me , do it I would for around 11 hours a week ( 11 hours is around jsa rate on minimum wage). I’ll be working, the action week but I’ll b e mailing exploiters.with my displeasure at their antics…

It wouldn’t be too bad if the companies actually trained us to compete in the modern world but to be used as free labour and not even being given lunch is just out of order.
The youngsters have a choice of education or training what about the over 45’s education is long gone and you can sod of for real training!

Speaking of workfare does anybody know how Osborne’s abortive Help-to-Work scheme is doing? How many people are eligible to go on it? And how many people are actually on it? I haven’t heard any Tory cunts boasting about how they’re now “making people work for their benefits” like prisoners in a chain gang and such like. Could the scheme be floundering? Anybody got any info?

Thought so. All that shite about making the long-term unemployed cook food for elderly people and such like. (Where the fuck did that come from anyway? If I had an elderly relative I’d want their food prepared by qualified cheffs and cooks not unqualified and inexperienced, press ganged, men and women on Jobseeker’s Allowance.) Which beggers the question: How will Jobcentres cope with signing hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis? Why aren’t any of the papers and media covering another Universal Credit-like crash and burn of Help-to-Work. Shouldn’t the British public be told that none of this bullshit is working and almost all of it disasterous, damaging and deathly?

My cousin was told he was going to have to mandatory work activity. So he waited for the letter to confirm this, but no letter came…. Now he’s got a letter from the DWP claiming that Learn Direct (whoever the fuck they are!) told him to report some charity shop shithole, when they didn’t. He honestly received no contact on the matter, yet there are the cunts telling him he has failed to attend something he knew nothing about…. I dare say his Fuhrer of a JCP ‘Advisor’ will put the boot in when he goes to Stalag 17 this Friday. Thing is though: they think that everyone who goes in there is some weed addled oaf, who dribbles into his socks and relies on Citizens Advice. I have told him my solicitor will help him if he needs it. So fuck them!

Lets look at the real villans in the peice shall we (@able and willing to work unlike some – I’m talking to you)

The vast majority of people on benefits WANT to work – that is a fact.

The claimant goes on workfare and all they get are benefits – nothing extra for additional food etc; remember…some of these placements require the claimant to undertake physical work (groundworks and TVP for example) so they are using more energy (calories) but can’t afford to buy extra food.

The “employer” pays these people nothing, zilch, nada. Not even minimum wage. So the “employer” does not have to deduct and remit PAYE income tax or Class 1 National Insurance (employee and employer contributions) because they are not paying wages.

The taxpayer (and we are ALL taxpayers, because we ALL pay VAT) is shafted thrice…1) the benefit paid to the claimant comes from the public purse and because no wages are paid, 2) no PAYE income tax or National Insurance is remitted to the treasury which represents a loss to the public purse and 3) the fees paid to the companies for taking claimints on to the programme come from … yes, you’ve guessed it the good old publc purse.

Camoron, Gidiot and Iain Despot Shit know this but they don’t care because, people on work placements are considered to be “in work” and therefore slip off the unemployment statistics.

Remember a year ago, Mark Carney, Governer of the Bank of England was going to raise the interest rate if unemployment figures dropped below 7.1% and they are below that know, but quelle surprise he has said he won’t raise them now as he wants the economy to stabilise…..ha ha ha rubbish! He won’t raise the interest rate because he knows the unemployment statistics are a fantasy.

Of course people could stop paying their taxes, but the only way this would have an impact would be if people were to do it en masse. If just a small number of people did it, it would be too easy to punish them- however, it would be a different story entirely if the numbers were too great for the courts to deal with.

The problem is taxation is embedded into absolutely everything so it is impossible for people to do this. People would if they could, but the situation has been deliberately designed so a nationwide tax strike would be impossible. Everybody would have to go off-grid simultaneously. Tax is extortion – there is no way to refuse. So they can take our money, do what they like with it, even use it against us and there is nothing we can do about it.

Good link, Wibbly. The principle is sound. But even if there was a way to get the bloodsuckers tentacles out of our wage packets, and nearly everything we buy, they would just steal the money directly out of our bank accounts, as the HMRC are proposing, precedent Cyprus. And there are also asset forfeiture laws. Everybody would be immediately defined as a criminal and the govt would have carte blanche to help themselves to everything we possess legally. As I said, cutting off their money supply is my dream. I weep.

“DISABILITY DENIAL PROGRAMME PLACED IN POCKETS OF AMERICAN MULTINATIONAL”

Multinational takes charge of sick pay eligibility
Written By: David Hencke
Published: September 6, 2014 Last modified: September 4, 2014

A multinational company will be able to order sick people back to work in England and Wales without a face-to-face examination under a new Government privatisation programme aimed to slash hundreds of millions of pounds off the sick pay bill.

The Department of Work and Pensions announced as Parliament went into recess that it is handing over the assessment of eligibility for sick pay to Health Management Ltd, a subsidiary of American multinational, Maximus, which operates in the United States, Britain, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

Maximus runs call centres, occupational health programmes, child support and job seekers programmes abroad and in the United Kingdom.

The programme is to be rolled out from November to next May under the new Health and Work Service set up by the DWP and aims to save between up to £165 million a year by getting people back to work faster as part of Lord Freud’s welfare reforms.

The Scottish government has declined to contract out the work to the private firm and will keep the assessment programme as part of the public service.

From November, people off sick for four weeks will have to be referred to the private company by their GP to continue claiming sick pay or receiving a salary from their firm. A sick note from a doctor will only cover the first four weeks of an illness.

According to a DWP paper this will affect nearly a million employees a year.

The DWP also claim that by getting sick people back to work earlier will boost the economy by £900 million a year.

Lord Freud said: “Providing support where it’s needed most will help to reduce the length of time employees take off sick which, in turn, will cut sick pay costs, improve economic output and reduce the chances of people falling out of work and having to claim benefits. “

Under the new contract for Maximus, it will assign a caseworker to each sick person and draw up a Return to Work plan which should be shared with the employer and employee.

If the sick person does not co-operate, they will not be eligible for sickness benefit.

The paper reveals that the initial assessment will be made on the phone not in person and will probe non-health issues as well as the illness.

The company will also provide an advice service.

The new service has already raised concerns among employers.

A commentary by Pinsent Mason, a law firm which advises employers, warns: “It remains to be seen how effective the new health service will be, particularly as any reports produced by HML will be based on advice delivered via the phone or internet, as opposed to a face-to-face offering.”

Maximus Inc., trademarked as MAXIMUS, is an American for-profit privatizing company that provides business process services to government health and human services agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom. MAXIMUS focuses on administering government-sponsored programs, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, health care reform, welfare-to-work, Medicare, child support enforcement, and other government programs. The company is based in Reston, Virginia, has 8,657 employees, and reported annual revenue of $1.05 billion in fiscal year 2012.[2]

In 2011, MAXIMUS was recognized as the top performing provider for welfare-to-work services under the United Kingdom’s Flexible New Deal program, helping job seekers into long-term sustained employment.[19] Following the Flexible New Deal, the United Kingdom government unveiled a replacement program, called the Work Programme, that created welfare reform changes.[20] MAXIMUS serves as a contractor in three regions under the UK’s Work Programme initiative.[21] In 2012, the company launched its first welfare-to-work program in Canada[22] and expanded its Australia operations with a five-year contract to help people with disabilities find employment.[23]

November 1997- The Hartford Courant reported that MAXIMUS “gets minimal results” when it was hired by the State of Connecticut to manage a child care program for recipients of welfare.[64] According to the Record-Journal, MAXIMUS “hired too few people, installed an inadequate phone system and fell weeks or months behind in making payments to day care providers.”[65] The Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS) asked MAXIMUS to meet improvement goals and by December, DSS Commissioner Joyce A. Thomas noted improvements on several fronts commenting, “The good news for Connecticut’s child care providers and the families we all serve is that the situation is rapidly improving. MAXIMUS has come a long way, and we are confident that current efforts are paving the way to long-term improvements.”[66]

December 1998- The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported that the State of Florida had paid MAXIMUS $4.5 Million for a Child Support Recovery contract. MAXIMUS was only able to collect $162,000. “On average taxpayers paid MAXIMUS $25 for every 3 cents collected”.[67]

April 2000- A New York judge ruled that MAXIMUS “misled” the city’s Human Resources Administration about the role a former senior policy adviser to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani played in the company’s proposal for a welfare contract.[68] Six months later, in October 2000, the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court, unanimously overturned the lower court’s ruling, stating, “There was no evidence of favoritism…There was no evidence that Maximus was afforded unfair access.”[69]

October 2000- Six state lawmakers in Wisconsin called for the termination of MAXIMUS’ W-2 contract, saying the firm has “broken faith with the state and poor people the agency serves in Milwaukee County.”[70]

June 2001- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that two MAXIMUS employees filed discrimination complaints against the company. The employees stated that MAXIMUS is so lacking in diversity that the companies minority employees referred to it as “White Castle”.[71]

July 2007- MAXIMUS settled a lawsuit brought against it by the United States government for involvement in falsifying Medicaid claims for $30.5 million.[72]

October 2010- The Los Angeles Times reported that 146 medical workers, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists were allowed to keep working despite failing drug tests. MAXIMUS was awarded a $2.5 Million a year contract to run California’s confidential “diversion programs”. MAXIMUS contracted the work out to a subcontractor who in turn subcontracted the work to another company. The drug testing company was using the wrong standard of drug test from December 2009 to August 2010, resulting in medical workers who tested positive for drugs to continue working.[73]

June 2011- Boston-based Fox25 news uncovered that a wanted fugitive by the name of Maureen Simonetti was working for MAXIMUS as a manager on the MassHealth project and had access to the personal information of individuals who use MassHealth for their healthcare. Simonetti’s attorney said his client disclosed pleading no contest to grand theft on her application to work at Maximus in 2005. However, the required Massachusetts background check, known as a CORI, did not uncover Simonetti’s grand theft case in Florida, which is an out of state criminal record. MAXIMUS stated that it had “no reason to believe that anyone’s personal information was used inappropriately” and terminated Simonetti.[74]

September 2011- MAXIMUS INC. was sued by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for disability discrimination for failure to promote a female employee because it regarded her as disabled.[75] MAXIMUS settled the lawsuit in August 2012.[76]

June 2012- Through an internal privacy audit, MAXIMUS discovered that a worker in Canada illegally viewed personal health records of 43 Canadians. The worker involved was immediately suspended and later fired. Health critic and member of the New Democratic Party Mike Farnworth said the incident was disturbing. “It’s concerning, we’ve had concerns about Maximus in the past,” he said. “I think what I would like to know – is this an isolated incident? Has it happened in the past?” Ryan Jabs, spokesman for the British Columbia Health Ministry said,”The risk is really low level because it looks like he or she was accessing the information out of curiosity but not for any fraudulent activity.”[77]

January 2013- A MAXIMUS employee, Marilyn Beltran, based in Boston MA was indicted for allegedly stealing more than $490,000 from the Massachusetts Medicaid program. The theft had occurred over a period of nine years.[78]

So Unum is, like Maximus, another private contractor hired to implement government welfare policies, a company with a history of corruption in the US. And like many of the other companies involved in the government’s welfare reforms, it helps formulate the very same policies from which it stands to make a profit. Meanwhile, the sick and disabled are thrown off benefits due to their advice. And, as you’d expect, they’ve even got a connection of the past masters of cruelty, fraud and corrupt influence, Atos.

From 2012: Fraud and Failure in Maximus, American Work Programme Contractors
April 9, 2014

This comes from Private Eye for the 29th June – 12th July 2012, and concerns the history of failure and corruption in Maximus, an American company that IDS awarded a contract for running the Work Programme.

Welfare to Work

Dirty Max

It’s probably just as well hardly anyone in the UK has heard of welfare-to-work firm Maximus, which has government contracts worth £176m to run Iain Duncan Smith’s Work Programme in west London and the South-east. In the US its record includes fraud and failure on a grand scale.

In 2007 Maximus was fined $30.5m over accusations that it cheated Medicaid, the US equivalent of the NHS, by making tens of thousands of false claims on a “payment by results” contract.

Washington State had hired the firm to help it make savings, both sharing money claimed from the national Medicaid system for children in foster care. But Maximus, in a plan called “Operation Lightning Rod”, increased its income by making claims for children who had not received care.

After the fraud was exposed Maximus said it would not sign any more “contingency-based contracts” where it was paid from “savings” in state expenditure. But the UK’s Work Programme is just such a contingency-based, payment-by-results contract.

In 2007 Maximus was also sued by Connecticut for the “abject failure” of its computer system which was supposed to run a police database, including real-time police record checks. The state’s attorney-general said: “Maximus minimized quality – squandering millions of taxpayer dollars and shortchanging law enforcement agencies.” He said the database could “make a life and death difference to police and other law enforcers”, so the failure was unacceptable. In 2010 Maximus settled the case for $2.5m.

In the same year the firm recorded losses of $37m after its work with Accenture for Texas collapsed. It was main subcontractor on a scheme to run the state’s health benefits; but after 5,000 benefit clerks were made redundant, the replacement databases and call centres, failed, families were arbitrarily cut off from benefits and Texas lost millions in national funds.

So, like A4E, another company with a history of failure and corruption was awarded the government contract to handle the Work Programme.

‘A Message to the British Establishment’ – now in #Scotland
DEAR SISTERS AND BROTHERS! IF YOU only watch and share ONE VIDEO this YEAR – PLEASE – WATCH AND SHARE THIS ONE IN #SOLIDARITY FOR THE #DISABLED PEOPLE OF #SCOTLAND
Scotland rejects Cameron Miliband and Clegg
A message to British Establishment: it’s over

Great video Geoff and everything he said is the truth. ordinary people are now waking up big time to the fact they’ve been conned, ripped off, shafted by a corrupt elite of politicians and bankers who are controlled like puppets by giant corporations.

They don’t give a damn about ordinary people and their lives.

Shitting themselves so much they cancel PMQ’s to send “The Three Stooges” up to Scotland. Nick Clegg???!!! Who in their right mind is gonna listen to that Tory? Ditto for Miliband. He’s never a Labour politician, he’s a Tory through and through. He believes in punishing the poor and the sick/disabled. He’s promised to continue Tory austerity and cuts. He is a traitor to the real Labour movement and he’s detested in Scotland and the rest of the UK for that.

As for them flying the saltire above 10 Downing Street: Have you ever felt so patronised in your life? Your country is treated like a backwater and given no consideration and they have the temerity to try to dupe gullible people by flying the Saltire!

……………even the Tribunals and judiciary are proactive in the demonisation of the disabled and poor.
Just appealed to the Upper tribunal, i am disabled and receiving only £33 per week since july last year.
There is an 18 week waiting time till a decision on my ESA appeal is heard.
I have made a formal complaint to the Human Rights Commissioner on how HER MAJESTYS COURTS AND TRIBUNAL SERVICE is actively breaching EQUALITY/HUMAN RIGHTS LAW with it’s sister department, the DWP.

That’s why those three pricks were sent up here. They can see their nice cushy future going up in smoke. Cameron having to resign because it happened under his watch. Ditto Miliband and Clegg; Scotland pulled their precious union apart and it all happened as they steered their respective parties.

If it happens and Scotland go’s independent then all three should resign their positions with immediate effect

True OBD they’re all shitting themselves. Did you see that Scotland Tonight last night? The interview debate thing with Alistair Darling getting grilled by Bernard Ponsonby? He was stuttering and stammering all over the place and at times seemed to have lost the plot!

He also seems to be getting more and more angrier and worked up by the minute while Alex Salmond just keeps his cool! No problems.

MAXIMUS has already infiltrated the “system” under the guise of Health Management. I worked for my local council and the minute I went off sick, I was referred to these occupational health cowboys. I had to go for an initial assessment then a few weeks later I had to go for a functional capability assessment then another one. Its a huge money making scam. It doesnt even make economic sense as it will cost the Government much more to pay these shysters than the sick pay to the employee. Its all about punishing the sick.

zoek
nasty stuff TUC approve of this crap as well…they want to train people NOT to be ill and say it is mind over matter…it is abuse to badger the sick and disabled…they claim that they are gods and have wondrous healing powers and can nip sickness and disability in the bud…

It’s unreal what’s going on in this shit-hole of a country. Do you know they even pressure people who have colostomy bags fitted, because they’ve had bowel problems and stuff, and say they’re fit to work!

Can you imagine sitting in an office going through that torture while having to deal with a health complaint like that?

They’ve got lot’s of the public brainwashed into believing this shit as well. i had a discussion one time with a person who said she didn’t see anything wrong with that!!!

The Crazen the Brainwashed the Out of Touch are as much to
Blame as Well

No to Degradation

Raining | September 10, 2014 at 7:42 pm | Reply It’s unreal what’s going on in this shit-hole of a country. Do you know they even pressure people who have colostomy bags fitted, because they’ve had bowel problems and stuff, and say they’re fit to work!

Can you imagine sitting in an office going through that torture while having to deal with a health complaint like that?

They’ve got lot’s of the public brainwashed into believing this shit as well. i had a discussion one time with a person who said she didn’t see anything wrong with that!!!

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